(UPDATE: The story keeps gaining national traction. Both Instapundit & Hot Air have posts about it now.)

Hey, they keep telling us we need to act more like Democrats, right?

Some disturbing heavy-handed, speech squashing thuggish garbage is going on in Maricopa County in my native state of Arizona.

It seems that the county Board of Supervisors is loaded with a bunch of the “screw principles and spend all the money” Republicans we’ve all come to know and loathe these past few election cycles.

More details from Blue Collar Muse:

At issue are relationships members of the County Attorney’s office have with the media, including a few bloggers. Not all the media, however, just those beating up on the Maricopa County Supervisors County Manager’s office. Seems the Board of Supervisors has been feuding with other state departments for some time, including messing with Maricopa County’s best known government employee, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Not only that, the same Supes squeezing the County Attorney employees have a really bad track record when it comes to things like character and integrity. The gaggle of liberal GOP Supes and the lone Dem in their midst have been accused of “wasteful spending, power grabs and criminal investigations” and there’s even a Twitter account, CorruptAZSupes.

The dispute with the County Attorney’s office got so bad the County Supervisors fired the County Attorney as their legal representative. And now the County Manager, David Smith, has decided to divert attention from his own side’s misbehaving by brow beating those pesky bloggers and their friends.

Smith sent a letter to the County Attorney’s office demanding to know who had relationships with bloggers – or else! They even specifically demand to know about activity that might have taken place on an employee’s personal time and their personal computers! Specifically named in the letter is Michael Scerbo, the County Attorney PIO, who is SUPPOSED to be in touch with the media! While there are some traditional media outlets mentioned, blogs are specifically targeted. The Sonoran Alliance, The Cactus Alliance and Intellectual Conservative Arizona are all named in the letter as being eeeeeeevil bloggers that bad County Attorney employees shouldn’t have anything to do with.

Sound familiar? It’s not that what they’re doing is scummy, it’s that those bastard bloggers are pointing it out! In their free time, nonetheless! What do these cretins think this is, America or something?!?!? Oh wait…

This shoot-the-messenger ploy is all the rage these days.

Here’s a portion of the letter that Comrade Smith sent out (via Warner Todd Huston):

Have you, whether under your name, some form of pseudonym, or anonymously, ever posted a blog, note or other communication on the internet concerning Maricopa County, any of its affiliated constituents (as defined in the Ethical Rules)?

Within the last six months, have you communicated with any person, site or entity listed below concerning the entities of individuals set forth in question 1 (a list of persons and blogs follows)

It’s bad enough when we have to battle the people who are supposed to be opposed to us. It’s far worse when those within our own ranks are virtually indistinguishable from the opposition.

David Smith is not only an enemy of free speech, he’s also a public official, so you can contact him. Here’s the info:

David Smith
Maricopa County Manager
301 W. Jefferson, 10th Floor
Phoenix, Arizona 85003
(602) 506-1950
dsmith@mail.maricopa.gov

Call him. Email him. Explain the First Amendment to him.

Thus endeth my umpteenth blog post in the past week where I bash people in my own party. So much for President Face Time’s “they do what they’re told” theory.

But then he tends to be wrong about everything.